Microaggressions occur every day and they can grate on people’s nerves to the point that it affects their mental health. This is why it is important to recognize the three main types of microaggressions at work.
What is a Microaggression?
What is a microaggression? Simply put, a microaggression is a subtle behavior that is insensitive to marginalized groups. This can include insensitive questions or assumptions made about marginalized people at any level in their professional career.
I can tell you from personal experience that microaggressions do affect mental health. When you have to deal with them every single day and advocate for yourself constantly, this takes a toll on your mental and physical health. This can include:
- Depression
- Increased stress
- Headaches or migraines
- High blood pressure
- Difficulty sleeping
Microaggressions are often rooted in unconscious bias and they are hard to recognize. However, if you begin to notice how we speak to one another and our behaviors towards others, you are on your way to weeding out microaggressions. This is important because businesses with a diverse employee base are known to innovate.
1 – Behavioral Microaggressions
There are 3 main types of microaggressions. The first is behavioral microaggressions. These occur when messages contain actions, terminology, or symbols that are insensitive. Certain biases are so ingrained into our daily lives that people don’t even realize they are being insensitive.
An example of behavioral microaggression is in the terminology that tech companies use. The terms “blacklist” and “whitelist” have been updated to “allowed” or “not allowed” to remove racial undertones. The same can be said for the widely used “master”/”slave” terminology which has been replaced with “primary”/” secondary”.
2 – Environmental Microaggressions
Another type of microaggression is environmental. Environmental microaggressions are present in our everyday lives and they greatly influence unconscious bias. These include a lack of diversity in the workplace, including gender, race, ethnicity, disability, and sexual orientation. People are addressing this more often now which is a good thing.
An example of environmental micro aggression occurs when all executives at a company are white men. More specifically, the candidate pool includes only men. When your hiring practices are unfair, you may not even notice due to unconscious bias. I’ve worked for too many companies who never had a diverse candidate pool for any leadership position. If your leaders are not diverse, you will not attract a diverse employee base.
Another example of environmental microaggression is when a company has a DEI team with all white people. I have been a part of teams like this and I always speak up. DEI teams should be led by people of color, in my opinion they have the most experience with recognizing and addressing DEI issues.
3 – Verbal Microaggression
The third type of microaggression is verbal. Verbal microaggression occurs when someone says something rude but in a nice way in order to veil their disrespect. I have dealt with a lot of this in my career and it is so degrading, especially when you complain and management doesn’t believe you.
An example that is not often addressed is rooted in classism. If someone grew up poor & now has a high paying job, it is not appropriate to ask them how they afforded a college education or question why a university would accept them in the first place. This asserts the opinion that people from certain socioeconomic backgrounds should not “have it so easy” or be chosen for opportunities based on their marginalized background.
Recognizing Microaggressions at Work – Courses on Pluralsight
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